Ability to facilitate students' individual and collaborative use of technology, including classroom resources as well as distance and online learning opportunities when available and appropriate.
As I reflect back on these lessons I see that the objectives were met and that there was indeed enough time for the students to complete all the parts of the project within one class block. I think allowing students a little freedom to choose parts of their project worked out well and moved a few students out of the comfort zone and into a critical thinking mindset. On the flip side of that same thought, if students have too many choices, they tend to freeze and not know where to begin. That was something that I changed mid-lesson with the dustbin game. I saw that students were a little overwhelmed when I told them they could label their dustbins with any category that they wanted as long as it had to deal with naming compounds. That was too much freedom, so I made a split second change and gave the students labels for each dustbin. Something I will change the next time I do this type of activity is to check out the laptop cart for the group project. Having a group of five teenagers huddled around one computer was not the best setup for a productive group session. It is too tempting for students to lose their focus if it is not their turn to type up the questions. All in all the students had a favorable opinion of the project and enjoyed a departure from our more traditional class time. Next time I think I will look for a more interactive web tool. These students are accustomed to walking around with a smart phone in their hand almost all day, so cutting edge technology or at least something a little more interactive should go over a little better next time.
As I reflect back on these lessons I see that the objectives were met and that there was indeed enough time for the students to complete all the parts of the project within one class block. I think allowing students a little freedom to choose parts of their project worked out well and moved a few students out of the comfort zone and into a critical thinking mindset. On the flip side of that same thought, if students have too many choices, they tend to freeze and not know where to begin. That was something that I changed mid-lesson with the dustbin game. I saw that students were a little overwhelmed when I told them they could label their dustbins with any category that they wanted as long as it had to deal with naming compounds. That was too much freedom, so I made a split second change and gave the students labels for each dustbin. Something I will change the next time I do this type of activity is to check out the laptop cart for the group project. Having a group of five teenagers huddled around one computer was not the best setup for a productive group session. It is too tempting for students to lose their focus if it is not their turn to type up the questions. All in all the students had a favorable opinion of the project and enjoyed a departure from our more traditional class time. Next time I think I will look for a more interactive web tool. These students are accustomed to walking around with a smart phone in their hand almost all day, so cutting edge technology or at least something a little more interactive should go over a little better next time.
Lesson Plans for Individual Project:
Student Work Samples:
Dustbin Game
http://www.classtools.net/widgets/dustbin_9/qMKOQ.htm
http://www.classtools.net/widgets/dustbin_0/kXgn9.htm
Kinetics Quiz
http://www.classtools.net/widgets/quiz_22/Kinetics_o0Wt0.htm
http://www.classtools.net/widgets/quiz_55/KMT_mHx6J.htm
Lesson Plans for Group Project:
Jeopardy Quiz
https://jeopardylabs.com/play/enter-title206076
https://jeopardylabs.com/play/alpha-group2